The subject matter herein relates generally to terminal position assurance components for electrical connectors.
It is known in various industries to have electrical connectors in the form of plugs and headers to provide electrical connection in such systems as automotive systems, for example, for engine electronics, engine control management systems and the like. At least some known electrical connectors provide terminal position assurance (TPA) devices which assure that the electrical terminal or contact is fully positioned before installing the fully loaded connector assembly into its end application. Such assemblies having TPA devices find substantial utility in automotive use as a terminal or contact which is not fully loaded in the connector, can cause an open circuit in an automotive harness. This in turn can cause substantial cost and effort to isolate and fix the problem.
Known TPA devices are normally insertable into the electrical connector housing from the side to a position where it lies adjacent to a terminal latching device and which can only be fully inserted if the terminal itself is fully inserted, and when the terminal latch within the housing is in its terminal locked position. The side loaded TPA devices create potentially problematic open areas in the housing because of the side access. The open areas inherently create tooling flash, allow for water ingress, dust/dirt ingress and other problematic environmental influences on the functionality and reliability of the product.